The Best New Biographies of 2023
The best new biographies of 2023 explore full lives and historical events in ways that speak meaningfully to the present.
CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com
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Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.
The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:
- The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell (HarperOne, September 26)
- Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14)
- Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14).
Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.
Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters by Lynnée Denise
This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.
Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power by Leah Redmond Chang
Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.
Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang
Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.
Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown
Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.
Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty
Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.
The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough Seletzky
Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.
Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.
- Best History Books by Era
- Books for a More Inclusive Look at American History
- Fascinating Food History Books
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The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024
This year sees some riveting and remarkable lives—from artist ai weiwei to singer-songwriter joni mitchell—captured on the page..
A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying experience that reminds us of our universal human vulnerability and the common quest for purpose in life.
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Biographies and memoirs charting remarkable lives—whether because of fame, fortune or simply fascination—have the power to inspire us for their depth, curiosity or challenges. This year sees a bumper calendar of personal histories enter bookshops, grappling with enigmatic public figures like singer Joni Mitchell and writer Ian Fleming , to nuanced analysis of how motherhood or sociopathy shape our lives—for better and for worse.
SEE ALSO: The Best Addiction Memoirs for the Sober Curious
Here we compile some of the most rewarding biographies and memoirs out in 2024. There are stories of trauma and recovery, art as politics and politics as art, and sentences as single life lessons spread across books that will make you rethink much about personal life stories. After all, understanding the triumphs and trials of others can help us see how we can change our own lives to create something different or even better.
Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini
Ai Weiwei , the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic of his homeland China, mixes fairy tales with moral lessons to evocatively retrace the story of his life in graphic form. Illustrations are by Italian artist Gianluca Costantini . “Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist,” Weiwei writes in Zodiac , as he embraces everything from animals found in the Chinese zodiac to mystical folklore tales with anamorphic animals to argue the necessity of art as politics incarnate. The meditative exercise uses pithy anecdotes alongside striking visuals to sketch out a remarkable life story marked by struggle. It’s one weaving political manifesto, philosophy and personal memoir to engage readers on the necessity of art and agitation against authority in a world where we sometimes must resist and fight back.
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti
Already well-known for her experimental writings, Sheila Heti takes a decade of diary entries and maps sentences against the alphabet, from A to Z. The project is a subversive rethink of our relationship to introspection—which often asks for order and clarity, like in diary writing—that maps new patterns and themes in its disjointed form. Heti plays with both her confessionals and her sometimes formulaic writing style (like knowingly using “Of course” in entries) to retrace the changes made (and unmade) across ten years of her life. Alphabetical Diaries is a sometimes demanding book given the incoherence of its entries, but remains an illuminating project in thinking about efforts at self-documentation.
Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison
Unlike her previous work The Empathy Exams , which examined how we relate to one another and on human suffering, writer Leslie Jamison wrestles today with her own failed marriage and the grief of surviving single parenting. After the birth of her daughter, Jamison divorces her partner “C,” traverses the trials and tribulations of rebound relationships (including with “an ex-philosopher”) and confronts unresolved emotional pains born of her own life living under the divorce of her parents. In her intimate retelling—paired with her superb prose—Jamison charts a personal history that acknowledges the unending divide mothers (and others) face dividing themselves between partners, children and their own lives.
Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring by Brad Gooch
Whether dancing figures or a “radiant baby,” the recognizable cartoonish symbols in Keith Haring ’s art endure today as shorthand signs representing both his playfulness and politicking. Haring (1958-1990) is the subject of writer Brad Gooch ’s deft biography, Radiant , a book that mines new material from the archive along with interviews with contemporaries to reappraise the influential quasi-celebrity artist. From rough beginnings tagging graffiti on New York City walls to cavorting with Andy Warhol and Madonna on art pieces, Haring battled everything from claims of selling out to over-simplicity. But he persisted with work that leveraged catchy quotes and colorful imagery to advance unsavory political messages—from AIDS to crack cocaine. A life tragically cut short at 31 is one powerfully celebrated in this new noble portrait.
The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul Charles
In The House of Hidden Meaning , celebrated drag queen, RuPaul , reckons with a murky inner world that has shaped—and hindered—a lifetime of gender-bending theatricality. The figurative house at the center of the story is his “ego,” a plaguing barrier that apparently long inhibited the performer from realizing dreams of greatness. Now as the world’s most recognizable drag queen—having popularized the art form for mainstream audiences with the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race —RuPaul reflects on the power that drag and self-love have long offered across his difficult, and sometimes tortured, life. Readers expecting dishy stories may be disappointed, but the psychological self-assessment in the pages of this memoir is far more edifying than Hollywood gossip could ever be.
Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne
Patric Gagne is an unlikely subject for a memoir on sociopaths. Especially since she is a former therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Still, Gagne makes the case that after a troubled childhood of antisocial behavior (like stealing trinkets and cursing teachers) and a difficult adulthood (now stealing credit cards and fighting authority figures), she receives a diagnosis of sociopathy. Her memoir recounts many episodes of bad behavior—deeds often marked by a lack of empathy, guilt or even common decency—where her great antipathy mars any ability for her to connect with others. Sociopath is a rewarding personal exposé that demystifies one vilified psychological condition so often seen as entirely untreatable or irreparable. Only now there’s a familiar face and a real story linked to the prognosis.
Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare is an acclaimed novelist and an astute biographer, delivering tales that wield a discerning eye to subjects and embrace a robust attention to detail. Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the legendary creator of James Bond, is the latest to receive Shakespeare’s treatment. With access to new family materials from the Fleming estate, the seemingly contradictory Fleming is seen anew as a totally “different person” from his popular image. Taking cues from Fleming’s life story—from a refined upbringing spent in expensive private schools to working for Reuters as a journalist in the Soviet Union—Shakespeare reveals how these experiences shaped the elusive world of espionage and intrigue created in Fleming’s novels. Other insights include how Bond was likely informed by Fleming’s cavalier father, a major who fought in WWI. A martini (shaken, not stirred) is best enjoyed with this bio.
Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie , while giving a rare public lecture in New York in August 2022, was violently stabbed by an assailant brandishing a knife . The attack saw Rushdie lose his left hand and his sight in one eye. Speaking to The New Yorker a year later , he confirmed a memoir was in the works that would confront this harrowing existential experience: “When somebody sticks a knife into you, that’s a first-person story. That’s an ‘I’ story.” Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder is promised to be his raw, revelatory and deeply psychological confrontation with the violent incident. Like the sword of Damocles, brutality has long stalked Rushdie ever since the 1989 fatwa issued against the author, following the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses . The answer to such barbarity, Rushdie is poised to argue, is by finding the strength to stand up again.
The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019–2022 by Peter Schjeldahl (Release: May 14)
Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022), longstanding art critic of The New Yorker , confronted his mortality when he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2019. The resulting essay collection he then penned, The Art of Dying , is a masterful meditation on one life preoccupied entirely with aesthetics and criticism. It’s a discursive tactic for a memoir that avoids discussing Schjeldahl’s coming demise while equally confirming its impending visit by avoiding it. Acknowledging that he finds himself “thinking about death less than I used to,” Schjeldahl spends most of the pages revisiting familiar art subjects—from Edward Hopper ’s output to Peter Saul ’s Pop Art—as vehicles to re-examine his own remarkable life. With a life that began in the humble Midwest, Schjeldahl says his birthplace was one that ultimately availed him to write so plainly and cogently on art throughout his career. Such posthumous musings prove illuminating lessons on the potency of American art, with whispered asides on the tragedy of death that will come for all of us.
Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Release: June 11)
Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a remarkable revival recently, even already being one of the most acclaimed and enduring singer/songwriters. After retiring from public appearances for health reasons in the 2010s, Mitchell, 80, has returned to the spotlight with a 2021 Kennedy Centers honor , an appearance accepting the 2023 Gershwin Prize and even a live performance at this year’s Grammy Awards . It’s against this backdrop of public celebration of Mitchell that NPR music critic Ann Powers retraces the life story and musical (re)evolution of the singer, from folk to jazz genres and rock to soul music, across five decades for the American songbook. “What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell,” she writes in the introduction. Instead, Powers’ project is one showing how Mitchell’s many journeys—from literal road trips inspiring tracks like “All I Want” to inner probings of Mitchell’s psyche, such as the song “Both Sides Now”—have always inspired Mitchell’s enduring, emotive and palpable output. These travels hold the key, Powers says, to understanding an enigmatic artist.
- SEE ALSO : Will Keen On Playing Vladimir Putin On Broadway in ‘Patriots’
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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies
The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.
Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.
Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor
The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge
Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans
Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs
1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.
I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.
That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.
Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.
Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.
G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).
Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”
In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.
“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”
Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.
For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.
While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.
Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”
A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.
We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.
I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.
Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.
Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.
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After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.
Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history. Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.
This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.
Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?
The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.
“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”
Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.
Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.
And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’
I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.
The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.
At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”
As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.
Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.
A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.
While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time magazine cover.
Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.
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As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”
There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?
In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.
The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.
The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?
June 30, 2023
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Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.
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New this week by Ketanji Brown Jackson Random House The first Black woman ever confirmed to the Supreme Court traces her family’s history and her personal ascent.
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Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us Is Getting a Special Collector’s Edition — See the Cover Here! (Exclusive)The new edition of Hoover’s 2022 bestseller features a new cover and additional material Carly Tagen-Dye is the Books editorial assistant at PEOPLE, where she writes for both print and digital platforms. Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty; Atria Books Good news, CoHort! A new special collector’s edition of Colleen Hoover ’s 2022 novel, It Starts with Us , is set to hit shelves this fall, PEOPLE can exclusively reveal. The new edition features a foil jacket set over a hardcover case, which is also embossed with Hoover’s signature, according to the publisher Atria Books. It also includes newly designed endpapers, as well as a reading group guide and four recipes from protagonist Atlas Corrigan’s cookbook. Atria Books The sequel to Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel It Ends with Us , It Starts with Us brings back a trio of familiar characters from the first book — Lily Bloom, Ryle Kincaid and Atlas Corrigan. Lily and her now ex-husband Ryle are navigating new co-parenting dynamics when Lily unexpectedly bumps into first love Atlas, after years apart. When Atlas asks Lily on a date, she agrees, but is reminded that though they’re separated, Ryle will not be happy about Atlas returning to their family’s orbit. The dual-perspective novel, which reveals more about Atlas’ past and shows Lily navigating a new chapter of her life, continues the emotional story that readers have come to know and love. The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! Hoover has had a big year, as the film adaptation of It Ends with Us , starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni , arrived in theaters in August. The author told PEOPLE that seeing her novel come to life on screen was “absolutely incredible and surreal.” "It's been a true team effort, and I can't wait for those who loved the book to see the movie and experience the magic they’ve created on the big screen,” Hoover said, adding that Lively’s performance as Lily also “exceeded all my expectations." Though Hoover said she hasn’t written for nearly two years , the author says she is “hopeful” that she will be able to return to the page soon. "I tend to go with my own gut. It's worked for me, up to this point," Hoover said. "I write when I feel like writing. If I'm late on deadline, I'm late on deadline. I want to put out books that I don't feel I have been forced to release, and I think that's the key." Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. The special collector's edition of It Starts with Us will hit shelves on Nov. 26 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold. Related ArticlesThe New York SunNew biography shows diana rigg to be much more than her character on ‘the avengers,’ emma peel. The difficulties Rigg experienced wriggling out from under the shadow of ‘The Avengers’ are reflected in the Peel-based structure of the book, to wit: ‘Before,’ ‘During,’ ‘After,’ and ‘Forever After.’  New Yorkers who have occasion to visit the Lower East Side — on the way to the Tenement Museum, perhaps, or Essex Street Market — may have noticed a towering mural on the corner of Allen and Broome streets. The painting is a silhouette of a sleek woman with high-heeled boots, a windblown coiffure, and what appears to be a gun. Just adjacent to the painting is the Emma Peel Room, an imbibery that a stray millennial tells me is “aight” in terms of atmosphere and libations. The owners of EPR are clearly familiar with Diana Rigg, who played the stylish, stunning, and high-kicking secret agent in “The Avengers,” the 1960s British television series. (They couldn’t have Uma Thurman in mind from the 1998 remake, could they?) But how many of their youngish customers know of the bar’s namesake, let alone Rigg, the dame commander of the Order of the British Empire who originated the role? If they recall the actress’s name at all it’s likely from HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” in which Rigg played Olenna Tyrell. From all reports, Rigg did outstanding work on “Thrones” — having little patience for the egregious or the execrable, I took a pass on the much-ballyhooed fantasy series — and she ended her days with a pivotal role in Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho” (2021). Still, I prefer to remember the elder Rigg for a stellar cameo appearance in Ricky Gervais’s British sitcom, “Extras.” Although she had been bestowed with a fancy title, the actress was still game for anything. In an episode from the show’s second season, Daniel Radcliffe plays a haplessly randy version of his 17-year-old self. While lunching in the studio commissary with struggling actor Andy Millman (Mr. Gervais), Mr. Radcliffe shows off his one-and-only condom — which he summarily sends flying over to the next table. The item in question lands directly on the head of Dame Diana. Ever unflappable, Rigg gives Mr. Radcliffe a lesson in grammar, etiquette, branding, and vocabulary in a matter of seconds — all the while with a straggly prophylactic perched on her silvery bangs. Rarely has a lunch of tomato soup and a bowl of fruit been as hilarious. Rigg’s comedic chops were formidable — but, then, anyone who had even tangentially followed her career knew as much. Rigg is the subject of a new biography by Herbie J. Pilato, “One Tough Dame; The Life and Career of Diana Rigg,” from the University Press of Mississippi/Jackson. He’s performed similar duties for Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, and “Glamour Gidgets and the Girl Next Door.” Mr. Pilato was shaped by “the social circuitry” of television programs from the 1960s and ’70s. His enthusiasm for the stuff is palpable; as a result, his prose tends less toward the critical than the chatty. “One Tough Dame” is a light read.  Why Rigg? Mr. Pilato writes that she “rarely played by the rules”: Rigg’s “tough exterior armored the softer side of a complex but dynamic and engaging personality that kept those about her at bay and on their toes.” The child of a Yorkshire railway engineer and a tailor’s daughter, Rigg spent her earliest years in India as a “permanent resident” of an “other part of the British Empire.” After attending boarding school in England, Rigg studied at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later signed on for a five-year stint at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon. All of which was overshadowed by Rigg being cast as the brainy, brawny, and bodacious Emma Peel on “The Avengers.” As an embodiment of Swinging Sixties irreverence, she proved an adept foil to Patrick McNee’s foppish John Steed. Given her charm, carriage, and form-fitting wardrobe, Rigg achieved popular success as a sex symbol and feminist icon — the former of which gave her headaches, the latter of which she claimed. She quit the show after two seasons. “The Avengers” petered out after her departure. The difficulties Rigg experienced wriggling out from under the shadow of “The Avengers” are reflected in the Peel-based structure of Mr. Pilato’s book, to wit: “Before,” “During,” “After,” and “Forever After.” The author skitters over the logistics of Rigg’s career and life, quoting sources liberally and often getting side-tracked by this-or-that tidbit of showbiz minutiae. As it is, Rigg emerges only fitfully from the pages of “One Tough Dame,” which, given the premium she placed on privacy, isn’t altogether inappropriate. A more scholarly biography awaits; Mr. Pilato’s will do in a pinch. Mr. Naves is an artist, teacher, and critic based in New York City. His writing has appeared in City Arts, the New Criterion,the New York Observer, Slate, the Spectator World, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.  © 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used. Sign in or Create a free accountA login link has been sent to. Cookies on GOV.UKWe use some essential cookies to make this website work. We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services. You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. 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10 Best Biographies & Memoirs of 2023: Sure, I'll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford. Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire. Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel. Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones. My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee.
Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14) Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14). Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!
From New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and bestselling author Nicholas D. Kristof, an intimate and gripping memoir about a life in journalism. This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning — a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated ...
Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography tells the life story of a gifted performer whose gleeful irreverence, sharp wit and generous spirit inspired millions. Richard Hunt was one of the original main five performers in the Muppet troupe. A list of 20 new biography books you should read in 2024, such as Life, Bismarck, Funny Boy, Charlie Hustle ...
Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini. 'Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir' by Ai Weiwei. Ten Speed Graphic. Ai Weiwei, the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic ...
Amazon.com New Releases: The best-selling new & future releases in Biographies. Skip to main content.us. Delivering to Lebanon 66952 Update location ... Hardcover. 1 offer from $24.00 #3. At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. H. R. McMaster.
Weekly book lists of exciting new releases, bestsellers, classics, and more. The lists are curated by the editors of Kirkus Reviews. ... Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir History. Current Events & Social Issues Graphic Novels & Comics Teens & Young Adult Children's. Popular Content. Bestsellers Book lists Best Of 2023 ...
The very best examples of family memoirs can, like John Niven 's O Brother or Blake Morrison 's Two Sisters, shed crucial light on the bonds of family or, in the case of Daniel Finkelstein 's Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad tell a far bigger story through the prism of family history. O Brother (Hardback) John Niven.
Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography.Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.
The New Old Me. Meredith Maran. Becoming Elizabeth Arden. Stacy A. Cordery. The Diaries of Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka. Great-Uncle Harry. Michael Palin. No Road Leading Back.
B&N Reads - If you love learning from the lives of others, then our Best Biographies and Memoirs of 2022 are the perfect books for you! Go to previous promo ... Hardcover $22.99 $28.99. Singer, songwriter, poet, painter, award-winning author, and extremely influential figure in the NYC punk movement, Patti Smith is an icon whose voice is a ...
Friends, Lovers and the Terrible Thing: A Memoir, by Matthew Perry. Perry, who played Chandler Bing on "Friends," has been candid about his substance abuse and sobriety. In this memoir, he ...
Angela Y. Davis. £20.00. Hardback. In stock. Usually dispatched within 2-3 working days. Reissued in a boldly designed new hardback edition, the intensely powerful memoir of political activist Angela Davis is a touchstone of the Black Liberation movement and packed full of incredible first-hand accounts of key events.
Hot New Releases in Biographies & Memoirs. #1. A Voyage Around the Queen: The new must-read biography of Queen Elizabeth II from the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize. Craig Brown. Hardcover. 1 offer from £18.89. #2. Helpless: Are Riley and his two little siblings in danger? Cathy Glass.
Books Advanced Search New Releases Best Sellers & More Amazon Book Clubs Children's Books Textbooks Textbook Rentals Best Books of the Month Best Books of 2023 So Far ... Hardcover. $24.29 $ 24. 29. List: $26.99 $26.99. Pre-order Price Guarantee. ... Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs. I'm Glad My Mom Died. by Jennette McCurdy | Aug 9 ...
New Releases in Historical Biographies. #1. Melania. Melania Trump. Hardcover. 1 offer from $28.00. #2. Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs. Luis Elizondo.
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New Releases; Fiction. Classics Crime Fiction Fantasy Fiction in Translation Historical Fiction Horror Manga Modern & Contemporary Fiction Poetry Science Fiction Short Stories Graphic Novels Romance. ... Politics & Humanities Reference Religion & Beliefs Science & Nature Sport & Hobbies Travel True Crime Humour Art & Photography Biography & Memoir.
Sports biographies take you into the locker room and off the playing field with the likes of Andre Agassi, Lauren Fleshman and Caster Semenya. Artist biographies run the gamut from Vincent van Gogh to Aurora James. Discover our list of the best books of 2024 so far for your TBR list or to give as gifts. Looking for biography books to read today?
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Good news, CoHort! A new special collector's edition of Colleen Hoover's 2022 novel, It Starts with Us, is set to hit shelves this fall, PEOPLE can exclusively reveal. The new edition features ...
Rigg is the subject of a new biography by Herbie J. Pilato, "One Tough Dame; The Life and Career of Diana Rigg," from the University Press of Mississippi/Jackson. He's performed similar duties for Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, and "Glamour Gidgets and the Girl Next Door." Mr. Pilato was shaped by "the social circuitry ...
Taylor Swift. Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara. £9.99. Hardback. Pinch of Nom Air Fryer: Easy, Slimming Meals. Kay Allinson. £20.00 £14.99. Hardback. Death at the Sign of the Rook.
The New Towns Taskforce is an independent expert advisory panel established in September 2024 to support the government to deliver the next generation of new towns. The primary objective of the ...